A story of loss and love and illness

A story of loss and love and illness

Update: I’m excited to announce that in less than a week Kate and William raised the money to cover Will’s medical expenses. The fundraiser is now closed.

A story of loss

When I was a senior in college my girlfriends and I took a spring break trip to Florida. We loaded up two cars and set out on the 14-hour drive down south. I don’t remember which city we were headed to.

We never made it to our destination. Somewhere over the Florida boarder one of our cars, the one I was not in, was run off the road by a semi-truck. It rolled across the median and landed in the northbound lane of Highway 95. It was an incredibly serious accident and our friend Morgan, who was 22, was killed.

I remember only bits and pieces of that night and the days and weeks that followed. There was shock and sadness and fear, of course, and deep inside an internal shifting was taking place. The experience of losing Morgan marked the end of childhood for me. Even all of these years later, just thinking about that time makes my heart race and my hands shake.

I’m not telling you this story to explain how losing Morgan changed me, though it did change me irrefutably. I’m telling this story to give context to what I am going to say next.

A story of love

When my friends and I arrived back at school to finish up our last quarter of college, some of us were in wheelchairs, some had broken bones and fractured skulls, and one of us was missing. All of us bore the invisible scars of experiencing the accident. When things like this happen, no one really knows quite what to say. Most people say nothing at all.

But when we returned home we found, in the mailbox, a beautiful, hand-drawn card from Will, another student and artist friend of ours. I don’t remember what it said but I do remember how it affected me. It was the first gesture that anyone (aside from our families) had made to tell us that what we had experienced was legitimately horrible. That the death of our friend was changing us in big and small ways and that he understood it would not be easy.

We had left for spring break and returned one week later completely changed forever. The world was a different place than it had been when we left. We were different people, transformed overnight. We struggled with fitting back into the life we were living before.

That small gesture of kindness was the first thing that greeted us back in our college town. Will couldn’t have known, but the compassion he extended to us made us all more comfortable returning to a place we loved as new people we didn’t quite understand yet. It gave us strength to move forward.

You don’t often get to pay people back for the kindness and love they extend to you when you need it most.

But here, in a small way, is a chance.

A story of illness

The other day I found out that Will was recently diagnosed with cancer. He has already undergone emergency surgery and is facing weeks of chemotherapy.

Will does not have health insurance and he is unable to work because of his condition. He is accumulating debt very quickly.

Let me also say that Kate and Will are ridiculously talented artists. I personally believe that buying a signed print right now might make you crazy rich in the future, not that you need that kind of motivation.

I hope that by sharing this story with my little corner of the Internet some of you may be moved to purchase a print in honor of Will and his kind spirit and the bits of goodness that come out of terrible things.

A giveaway

I have purchased two of these prints and will be giving them away to two of you. All you have to do to win is repost this blog to your facebook page, or repost Kate’s announcement about the fundraiser, and then leave a comment to let me know you’ve done it.

As someone who is going through a (hopefully very slight) cancer scare myself, having surgery the same day Keith was going to give notice to leave his job so we could travel – I hate the thought of someone facing cancer without insurance. Retweeted, and posted on fb. And done without the need to enter me in the print contest – just happy to do it. Let your friend know some serious positive thoughts headed his way.

An artist without insurance has cancer and needs our help. I don’t know him, or his girlfriend, but thought I would post this because helping people who need it is the right thing to do. If you feel so compelled, the info & Etsy fundraiser can be accessed here: http://shar.es/bbEql and you can also share this on your page as well.

Such a sad story – happy to be able to help, I’ve bought one of Kate’s lovely prints and plan to hang it over my desk to remind me how important friends and being healthy are. Sending all my best to Kate and Will.

I’m sending prayers of support for your friend Will and for his girl friend Kate and his family. Having been through my parents journey with cancer I know that caring and support mean the world. I will share your post with others.